Day 6: Train to Hoi An

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Mornings in trains are always interesting. People of all shades and shapes wake up ane perform the same functions. Its like the great leveller. The good thing about these trains are that the attendant sees to it that the toilets are clean. And food comes in trollyes. Tea and coffee. Lunch on order. An old lady sleeps in our cabin. She is fascinated by our family and puts up with a lot to continue sitting in a cabin going berserk with two kids on the rampage. Sometimes we can be a bit too much. I am quite happy with the trains here. They are clean and comfortable if a tad small. We get of at Danang station about an hour late. There were supposed to be minibusus from the station to Hoi An, but we did not see anyone, only taxis. Asking around also did not get any information about these illusive mini buses. So we haggled with a Taxi driver - 320 dongs to Hoi An. And he promptly stops at a hotel far away from any of the regons which seemed to be where we should be going - old city, cars dont go, look at my rooms....never believe hotel touts who oversell their rooms. We insist on pushing forward to the waterfront - Bach Dang/ Le Loi/ Tran Phu. And we are promplty unloaded in front of a hotel recommended by Lonely Planet. But in our experience any hotel recommended by LP is never good value. And as we find it, inflexible room rate of 17 dollars and not so decent. We decide to look around a little bit more - a man tells us that he will show us a few hotels on the back of his bike, and I go to a few more places - 12 dollars for similar rooms without breakfast and then on the waterfront we strike gold - rooms which are tagged 20 or 30 dollars, they will give them to us in 16 dollars.

We can see the devastation of the recent floods everywhere. People had warned us all along as we planned to come up, that central Vietnam is badly effected by cyclone and as we approached Danang - the signs of that recent devastation was all around us on both sides of the train tracks. Here in Hoi An that truth was more evident. The water had reached a height of the lintels of the old town, and debris piled up on both sides of the river. People feverishly clearing up their houses - the riverside premium properties mostly out of commission, city workers washing the river side with fire hoses. The water is murky and high.

We walk out into this quaint old town - with its 200 year old wooden and brick facade. Narrow windong streets and every shop has lanterns hanging on the front. Most of the old shops in the old city are converted to selling something to the tourists - restaurants, curios, jewellery and clothes. And some more clothes. Hoi An is famous for tailors churning out clothes in all kinds of fashons and fabrics, and they look ravishing. But the prices in the shops are a little too much. We look for a place to eat, but this place is kind of difficult to escape the tourist trap. Most of the restaurants we see are full of foreigners and look expensive. Where are the local people? Atlast we find a place which looks a little less expensive and the beer is 10 dongs. The food is excellent, but the portions too small, and we are all still hungry after spending almost 200 rupees a head.

The streets of Hoi An are full of dragon parades to mark the Moon festival - truly colorful spectacles. In the city square hundreds of people pile around dragon dance on top of tall poles. The kids are mesmerised as is Mathew - taking hundreds of pictures and walking through lantern lit streets. The kids have their own dragon parades - little dragons with little drums. The sound and the colours mark a high of our trip. Walking through these old streets looking at the old houses - this place is truly enchanting.

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